Scary

Today, I am writing about a D experience that had me scared out of my wits. This past week was my first every college exam week, and let me tell you, it was NOT fun. I had 3 exams on Monday and 2 on Tuesday. I'm not sure if I've ever studying so hard in my academic career. Tuesday morning I had an exam at 10am. I got up at 7, studied for a while, went to breakfast and headed off to my exam. I get to the room only to find that my exam starts at 10:30am, not 10. So I head back through the freezing cold back to my dorm. As I'm sitting in front of my computer pretending to be studying, I feel a horrible wave of nausea come over me. The first thought that rushes through my mind is, "Oh no! I can't get that stomach flu NOW! I have to take an exam." The second almost always present thought follows behind. "I'd better check my blood sugar." I grab my meter, whip out my pump (I use the CozMonitor) and wait. 50. 50!!! I look, and I have close to 4 units on board. This will put me at about negative 90. But unlike normal, I do not want anything to eat. I want to throw up. My room mate, who the wonderful people at my college put me with, is not around. She's usually pretty good at getting me to eat. I finally decide that I can probably manage some juice. I whip open my pitifully small fridge, and guess what? The juice is GONE. I grab a fruit snack, my trusty friend in times of hypoglycemia, and slowly start eating. As the food hits my stomach, the nausea slowly decreases, and I start eating as fast as my hands can hit my mouth. As the panic of throwing up or passing out decreases, I look at the clock. #()%&)!!! It's 10:27, and my exam starts at 10:30. I grab a little more food, grab my trusty #2 pencils, and I run out the door. I got to my exam 5 minutes late, in a panic. I start taking the exam, with my head still in a fog. About 10 minutes into it, it hits me to recheck my blood sugar and bolus a little for all the carbs I ate. In my hurray, I shut the "friendly" your last blood sugar was low alarm off. I check and I'm up to a whopping 90. I ate 100ish carbs, and I was only up to 90? I push down the panicked feeling and daringly bolus for 25 carbs. I waited the rest of the day for the rebound high that never came. I still have no idea why I went low. I know my breakfast bolus was fine. I guess the stress of exam week decided to rocket me from the 300's of the past few days to a nasty low. All I know is that I was scared. Very scared. I thought I might have to use my glucagon on myself. Or worse, that my roommate would come back to find me lying on the floor, or in the bathroom vomiting my guts out. Morale of the story? There is none! Other than, just maybe, that diabetes sucks, and I'm thankful that a thing like glucagon exists, if I needed it. Oh, and Diabetes sucks.

My first post, and it's a rant!

I've finally gotten up the courage to start a diabetes related blog. I've read many fantastic blogs, and I've been inspired to try it. I am not by any means a good writer. My spelling often will be wrong. I will often be stressed out and ranting. But I invite you to read. I've been living with diabetes for 17 years. I am 18. I do not know a life without diabetes. This is both a blessing and a curse, depending on which day you ask me. :-)
Today was a site change day. Ok, if you want to get technical, last night was site change day, but I didn't do it. Naughty me. I had enough insulin and the site was working fine, so sue me! On a good day, and site change will take me 10 minutes or less. Today, was NOT a good day. It started with lots of air bubbles in the catridge that would not leave. I spent over 10 minutes messing around with it before I was satisfied. Everything went smoothly until I went to put the site in. I've been using my arms lately. After almost 6 years of pumping exclusively in the stomach, it needed a break, so I've been using my arms, and taking advantage of the cold weather and long sleeves to hide the sites. I decided to be slightly adventurous and try the back of my arms. I use quick-sets, 6mm. To put the set in using the quick-serter, you have to press 2 little white buttons at the same time. This was one of those days that they did NOT want to release at the same time. Finally, the site goes in. This is accompanied by a flash of pain that did not leave. Great. Do I leave it in, and suffer from potential pain and a high blood sugar, or take it out? Like I almost always do, I leave it in. The pains relieves slightly, and I make a note of the time so I can check my blood sugar in an hour. I put away all of my site change things and start to hall out homework. I reach down my sleeve to adjust the tubing, and I feel something sticky. This is not good. I feel around a little more, and feel the canula. (#&$!!! I quickly remove my sleeve to see blood and a pump site just barely hanging one. Great, just great. I really didn't want to do homework anyway! What better to do than do yet another site change! As I grab my supplies, I realize I have only 1 site left with me. I am not in the dorm this weekend, and I thought I had brought more than enough supplies. I thought wrong. My last good site is in, and it better be a good one, or I'm back on shots for the rest of the weekend. That would be a nightmare at this point. I'm out of practice with shots in the first place, but I'm also on steroids for a lung illness, which has dramatically increased my insulin needs.
I hate changing my pump site today. Most days, it really doesn't bother me. Sure, it's an annoyance, but it's annoyance that allows me great freedom and good health. But today, I hate it. I hate that I have to rely on this stupid machine with it's tubing and tapes and cartidges. In short, I WANT MY CURE!
I hope my first attempt at a blogger post wasn't a complete failure.
I ask a favor of anyone reading this: Could you please comment? Until I know how this goes, I won't be actively telling anyone about it, but I would like to know if anyone happens to stumble across it! Thanks so much!